Claimed by My Bully Alpha Chapter 155

Aurora’s P.O.V

I woke up with a jolt, my body drenched in cold sweat. My heart hammered in my chest, and I was gasping for breath, the dark, suffocating feeling of my nightmare still lingering around me. My eyes darted around, but all I could see was blackness. No light, no sounds—just that endless void. Panic flooded through me, and I fought against the overwhelming sense of being trapped. I couldn’t let it take me again. I couldn’t stay in that place, that dark abyss.

I tried to stand, but something was different. My feet met solid ground. Soft, familiar ground. Slowly, I blinked, trying to make sense of it all. I wasn't standing in the dark anymore. I wasn't in the place I had been before. I was... lying down? My hands brushed over the fabric beneath me, and the realization hit me like a punch to the gut.

This wasn’t my room.

I sat up, confusion clouding my mind. The room around me came into focus, a slow, creeping clarity. It was small, cozy, and had a certain warmth to it, something I hadn’t noticed before. There was a bedside table on the right, and on it—A picture. I froze, my breath catching in my throat. It was a picture of my mother. I could see her face clearly in the dim light. She was so much younger in that photo, smiling widely as if there was nothing in the world that could take that joy away from her.

Hastily, I looked around, finally realizing where I was as each piece of furniture, each corner of this room finally registered in my sub-consciousness.

And for a moment, I couldn’t breathe. This... this was my parents' room. How did I end up here? Why? How? When…?

I stood up quickly, my legs wobbling under the sudden weight of everything rushing back.

"No... this can't be real," I whispered to myself, my hands shaking. I looked around, my eyes frantic. Everything was so familiar, so vivid and realistic. But how could this even be possible? Caleb told me my house was gone…

I touched the bed, the soft, plush comforter my mother used to insist on. I closed my eyes for a second, trying to steady my breathing. But the panic was still there, clawing at me. "How am I here?" I mumbled under my breath, my voice cracking. I needed answers, but it felt like the more I searched for them, the further they slipped away.

I reached for the picture, picking it up carefully. The edges were a little worn, as if it had been handled many times, but the image was still clear. My mother’s smile. Her eyes. I could almost hear her laughter echoing in the back of my mind. But this couldn’t be a memory. This felt... too real. I glanced around the room again, trying to make sense of what was happening.

My heart ached with a strange sense of loss. "Mom?" I whispered softly. But there was no answer.

I looked around the room, trying to make sense of it. The walls, the furniture—all of it felt so familiar, yet distant. There, to my left, was a closet. A simple one, nothing extraordinary, but it caught my eye. I couldn’t help but wonder what it contained, but I knew better than to go looking, unsure of what I would find.

A feeling of nostalgia hit me hard. The room looked like it had been left untouched, like a memory trapped in time. I turned my head to the right, and there it was—on the table, a flower vase filled with carnations. My mother’s favorite flowers. I smiled softly at the sight of them. They’d always been a symbol of home, of something constant in a world that often felt uncertain.

But something wasn’t right. I felt a chill running down my spine. I wasn’t sure why, but the longer I stood there, the more I realized that there was something off about this place. This wasn’t the same room I remembered, not entirely. It was like everything here had belonged to her, and only her. There were no traces of my father. No clothes scattered around, no signs that he had ever been here. No pictures of us, of our family. Just my mother, her belongings, and the faint scent of carnations in the air.

I shook my head, trying to make sense of it. I took a step forward, but I felt like I was sinking deeper into this strange, surreal version of my old home. It was like I was standing in my parents' room, but at the same time, I wasn’t. There was no warmth to this place, just an unsettling silence, a feeling that my father’s presence had never been here at all.

“Mom?” I whispered, my voice feeling strange in the quiet. I waited for a response, but there was nothing. No sound, no movement. Just me standing alone in this room, surrounded by my mother's things, but somehow not feeling like I belonged here at all.

The darkness seemed to fade slowly, but it wasn’t the kind of fading that brought comfort. It felt more like a slow unraveling, like something was pulling at the edges of my reality. I looked down at my hands, as if trying to ground myself, but I couldn’t shake the feeling that everything here was wrong.

I blinked, looking at the space behind the bed, my heart pounding in my chest. The photo had always been there, the one with my parents on their wedding day, the only picture I had of them together. But now, it is gone. All that was left was a framed photo of my mother, standing alone, her smile radiant. My stomach twisted as I stared at it, confused, unsettled.

I had never seen my mother like this. It surprised me, the way she seemed so... different. For as long as I could remember, she had always been this worn-out person, like she was struggling with something I hadn’t been able to grasp until she was gone. She always seemed tired, as if the weight of the world was on her shoulders, and I’d never seen her look any other way. But now? Now she seemed calm, almost serene, as if a veil had been lifted. It was strange. I stood frozen, trying to take it all in.

Suddenly…a voice called out to me from this strange place.

“Aurora,” it is called, soft and insistent. I froze, my eyes darting around the room. The voice wasn’t coming from any one place—it seemed to surround me, reverberating in the walls, in the air itself. My heart skipped a beat.

"Mom? Is that you?" I whispered, though I wasn’t sure what I was hoping for. My pulse quickened, and I spun around, scanning every corner of the room, but there was nothing—no one.

"Aurora," the voice came again, this time louder, more urgent, and I felt a shiver crawl up my spine. It felt wrong. My breath caught in my throat as a sudden force jerked me forward. Before I could even comprehend what was happening, I felt myself being dragged, as if the very ground beneath me was pulling me into its depths. My hands scrambled, grasping at the edge of the bed, but it was no use. I tumbled forward, the world around me spinning uncontrollably.

My stomach lurched as the sensation shifted, no longer solid ground beneath me, but water—cold, dark, and suffocating. I gasped, flailing as I sank deeper into the liquid. Panic surged through me, my chest tightening as I fought to find something—anything to grasp. But the water was endless, pulling me down, twisting around me in a way that made it impossible to know which direction was up.

I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t think. I kicked my legs, trying to break free of the crushing weight of the water, but it only dragged me deeper. The voice called to me again, distant yet close, echoing in the depths like a phantom, drawing me in.

“Aurora…”